Another week in Malava…
Last Sunday we continued our tradition of Sunday Brunch. We went to the boys’ house for brunch on Sunday afternoon with Laurie (the American at Jean and Michael’s school) and Hezbon (a Kenyan who also works at the school. They made us this Zambian dish with rice and BACON. Laurie told us her story about being here when the violence broke out after the election and their evacuation. After Laurie and Hezbon left, the group of school age girls who likes to hang around Tom and Michaels house came by and started yelling at all of us to give them food and water. This, in turn, started a water fight…which was kind of one sided. Mostly the boys threw water and the girls ran away. They’re nice girls, but very noisy, we were happy when they finally went home.
Work this week had its ups and downs. Some days I was very busy and some days not so much.
Tuesday I went into the field with Sr. Joy, Mama Grace (the coordinator of the Community Based Rehabilitation Workers-CBRWs) and Margret, a CBRW for the region where we were going. First of all, I thought we lived in a little village. In the field, I got to see what rural Kenya really looks like. Of course I forgot to bring my camera, but I’ll remember it next time I go with Sr. Joy. Anyways, the point of these visits is to validate that the needs of the parents aren’t being exaggerated. Often, they’re cases where I family needs assistance with transportation or medicine, so they go out to assess the home situation. The first family we visited with a young mother who has a son named Vincent who’s leg needs plaster casting to straighten out some bones that did not grow correctly. We went to where they live, which seemed very far from the center, especially since they said that walked there. She also had another child with disabilities and wanted money for transport, since she could not walk all the way with the both of them. So we went, and there were a ton of little, half naked kids running around. We sat in the families thatch roof house for about an hour while the St. Julie employees asked the family questions. Since the whole thing was conducted in Swahili, I didn’t really understand the conversation. Sr. Joy said it took so long b/c people kept coming in b/c there was a vehicle there. They wanted to know what was going on. I guess vehicles don’t often make it back as far as we were. I can understand why. It wasn’t so much driving on roads as it was driving from dust roads to stone and grass, up and down the hillsides. At one point, we even had to cross two small rivers. Thank god for 4wheel drive.
Anyways, we moved on from there to visit a woman with 4 children, three of whom are in school and the littlest one who has epilepsy. She needed help with transportation, since she too lived far from the center, and help with the medicine needed to treat the epilepsy. Joy told me that this woman lost her husband last year, so you can imagine my surprise when we got there and the woman turned out to be around my age, maybe a few years older. I can’t imagine being my age and already having four children and having lost a husband. She was very friendly, and the visit was shorter. Joy said she would be able to help the family, but only maybe for a year or so while the woman was still grieving for her husband. She explained that since this woman had land with sugar cane, maize and beans that could be sold and the ability to work in nearby fields while her children were in school, she should not need our help once she is settled.
Finally, we had one more family to visit. It must have taken us an hour to go maybe 10 or 15km. We stopped for sodas and to buy some bananas (so much cheaper than in town). Finally, after driving up a very steep hill that didn’t really have a road, we arrived at the homestead of a little boy named Kevin who is living with his grandmother since his father is still in secondary school. That’s right, the dad is only 17. But that’s not even the part I found shocking. The mom, who was there with Kevin the baby, was 15 yrs old. I couldn’t believe it. Married with a child at 15. But Sr. Joy explained to me that it really is quite normal for that to happen, especially in families where the children do not go to secondary schools. In the Kakamega district alone, last year more that 80% of the children went to primary school (b/c its mandated and “free”) but only 10% of those children continued on to secondary school. And a man here becomes an adult at 12, when they’re circumcised. After that, they build their own house on their parents homestead and can take a wife as soon as they can afford the bride price. So here was this little mother, holding her nine month old son, almost 10 years younger than myself. I know I’m here to learn and observe and not judge, but it makes me happy to have grown up in the kind of American life that I did.
The families we visited today were very poor, many of them with a lot of children. There was a little boy at the first house, Fred, who was the other child in the family who had disabilities. Similar deformities to his brother with the twisted legs, but there were also indications that he has mental retardation issues. While his baby brother had been into St. Julie’s, he never had. The grandmother promised, while we were there, to watch the other little one so the mom could take both of her children with disabilities to the center.
So…the visits were exciting, enlightening, and sad…all at the same time. But at least I felt like I was really learning more about what real life here is like.
Wed and Thursday were uneventful. I’ve started reading the Harry Potter series again, from the beginning, just for fun. We started planning for our trip to the coast that we’re taking in April. I think I may have found a little cottage for all of us that will only cost us around $24 USD/ day and includes a full time cook. We also got a box full of stuff for our kitchen from Nairobi; including exciting things like a colander and a cheese grater…it’s really the little things in life. I’ve been trying to watch “It Happened One Night”…on loan from Tom of course…but I keep falling asleep.
Friday I went with Sr. Catherine and 6 of our clients and their parents to the Sabatia eye clinic, which does cost free vision screening and is run by Quakers. Sr. Catherine was telling me that the Friends Meeting has become a very strong African religion and they run schools and hospitals all over the place. The eye clinic was extremely well and had doctors from all around the world. While Sister Catherine took 2 of the older children to be seen by the doctor, I took the others to the low vision clinic, where a lovely young woman by the name of Regina took them through a series of eye tests and made further recommendations about their therapy at the center or what specialists might be helpful. All the children were wonderful, but a sweet little girl named Valerie soon became my favorite. She came right up and wanted to hold my hand while we walked. She admired my bracelet and wanted to try on my glasses. Sr. Katherine told me later in the car on the way home that when she was only 2 (she’s almost 7 now) she was in a horrible accident. She was in a coma for a full month. Now, several years later, she’s a bit delayed, but she’s a happy, healthy little girl. She really is a miracle. She needed to go to the eye clinic b/c the last thing to return was her sight.
Saturday was a very very long day. It was Michael’s birthday and the Sisters had a little celebration for him on Friday night. We were invited for dinner with cake and ice cream at the community house and they gave him a box of new toys for the orphanage. So since Saturday was his actual birthday, we decided to switch days and have volunteer brunch this morning. I made my famous “Suey pancakes” (as Crissy dubbed them in college) and had them with honey since syrup is hard to find and very expensive. Jean and I decided that we wanted to explore the Kakamega Rainforest , so we set off after breakfast. The Kakamega rainforest used to be part of an equatorial rainforest that stretched across the middle of Africa from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. This little piece is the only piece that now exists in Kenya. It was not the Fern Gully rainforest of my imagination, but it was spectacular. We saw some more colobus monkeys and walked a very far 3 km in the blazing sun to find waterfalls on the Isiukhu River. The falls were amazing, and had the water not been so murky, I think I would have dived in with all my clothing on. We also had the chance to meet some entomologists (bug scientists) who were both Kenyan and I believe German. They’re traveling all over the country to collect different kinds of dragon flies to put in Kenyan museums.
Then it was off to Kakamega to use the ATM, but of course, on the way out, I managed to trip over some roots and fall, landing hard on my knee. I limped my way through the rest of the day, including two pretty terrible, pretty crowded and dirty matatu rides. I was happy to finally be home and get off my feet.
PS another story to add to the wild kingdom file- I was getting in the shower the other night and a gecko fell off the ceiling, hit me on the head and got tangled in my hair. Despite the fact that he was completely harmless, I screamed like the scardy cat I am.
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